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Parcel post is a postal service for
mail The mail or post is a system for physically transporting postcards, letters, and parcels. A postal service can be private or public, though many governments place restrictions on private systems. Since the mid-19th century, national postal sys ...
that is too heavy for normal letter post. It is usually slower than letter post. The development of the parcel post is closely connected with the development of the railway network which enabled parcels to be carried in bulk, to a regular schedule and at economic prices. Today, many parcels also travel by road and international shipments may travel by sea or
airmail Airmail (or air mail) is a mail transport service branded and sold on the basis of at least one leg of its journey being by air. Airmail items typically arrive more quickly than surface mail, and usually cost more to send. Airmail may be t ...
.


Development of domestic parcel posts

The idea of a parcel post may be credited to Germany, where the growth of railways had brought uniform postal rates throughout Germany and Austria in 1857. The practice of forwarding parcels with the mail, however, had been in use in Austria since the seventeenth century and in some German states is said to date to the fifteenth century. In the first year after the establishment of the domestic parcel post in Germany (1874), 38,862,654 parcels were carried, rising to 62,946,100 by 1881.Jones, Chester Lloyd
"The Parcel Post in Foreign Countries"
''The Journal of Political Economy'', Vol. 22, No. 6 (June 1914), pp. 509–525.


History


1881: Universal Postal Union agreement

The international parcel service, which allowed the orderly shipment of mailed packages and parcels from one country to another according to predetermined rates, was established by the
Universal Postal Union The Universal Postal Union (UPU, french: link=no, Union postale universelle), established by the Treaty of Bern of 1874, is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) that coordinates postal policies among member nations, in addition to ...
on 1 October 1881 (Great Britain, India, The Netherlands and Persia, 1 April 1882), following the agreement of 1880 in Paris during a three-week conference on the subject. The service was difficult to introduce as in several countries the carriage of parcels was a monopoly of the railway companies, and Egypt, Great Britain, India, Canada and Italy all initially claimed that there was no parcel service in their country.


Great Britain and the Commonwealth

The British domestic parcel post service was established on 1 August 1883.
Commonwealth A commonwealth is a traditional English term for a political community founded for the common good. Historically, it has been synonymous with "republic". The noun "commonwealth", meaning "public welfare, general good or advantage", dates from the ...
and foreign parcel post services were also established. The eight Australasian colonies (South Australia, Western Australia, New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria, Tasmania, New Zealand, British New Guinea and Fiji) and the other separate postal services of the colonies joined the UPU in 1891. By 1909/10, over 118 million parcels annually were being carried in the U.K., around 2.5% of which were international.


United States

The United States, as a signatory, started foreign parcel services in 1887''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
''. "The Parcel Post System". 24 April 1887
but did not institute domestic services until 1913. The USPS, successor to the U.S. Post Office, officially ended International Parcel Post service in May 2007 after some 120 years of existence. International Parcel Post service was replaced by First-class Mail International service for parcels up to four pounds. For heavier parcels and/or printed matter, Priority Mail International, Priority Mail International Flat-Rate, Express Mail International, Airmail M-Bags, and Global Express Guaranteed service is available to foreign countries allowing these types of mail delivery. USPS Domestic Parcel Post was an affordable method of sending large parcels of up to seventy pounds and a maximum combined length and girth of one hundred and thirty inches via ground transportation across the U.S. Effective January 27, 2013, the USPS renamed its parcel post service from 'Parcel Post' to 'Standard Post'. Effective January 17, 2016, the USPS renamed the service again, from "Standard Post" to "USPS Retail Ground", a name intended to resemble those of competing services UPS Ground and FedEx Ground. Commercial Parcel Post service is now under the "Parcel Select" name.


Private couriers

Private
couriers A courier is a person or organisation that delivers a message, package or letter from one place or person to another place or person. Typically, a courier provides their courier service on a commercial contract basis; however, some couriers are ...
have existed since goods first needed to be transported from place to place. Before the development of state-run parcel posts, many railway companies had a thriving parcel service and private companies continue to run their own delivery networks today through firms like
FedEx Express FedEx Express, a subsidiary of FedEx Corporation, is a major American cargo airline based in Memphis, Tennessee, United States. As of 2020, it is one of the world's largest airlines in terms of fleet size and freight tons flown. It is the na ...
or
DHL Express DHL is an American founded, German logistics company providing courier, package delivery and express mail service, which is a division of the German logistics firm Deutsche Post. The company group delivers over 1.8 billion parcels per year. DH ...
, even owning their own aircraft for long distance deliveries. Numerous smaller firms provide domestic and international courier services. Nowadays parcels often bear a
barcode A barcode or bar code is a method of representing data in a visual, machine-readable form. Initially, barcodes represented data by varying the widths, spacings and sizes of parallel lines. These barcodes, now commonly referred to as linear or o ...
so they can be tracked at all the stages up to their reception by the final recipient.


Road transport services

Before the development of the railway network, road transport was the principal means of parcel transport. Services by road continued to thrive even during the railway age, including by bus,
tram A tram (called a streetcar or trolley in North America) is a rail vehicle that travels on tramway tracks on public urban streets; some include segments on segregated right-of-way. The tramlines or networks operated as public transport ...
and trolley car.


Size limits

The size can range from a standard
mail The mail or post is a system for physically transporting postcards, letters, and parcels. A postal service can be private or public, though many governments place restrictions on private systems. Since the mid-19th century, national postal sys ...
package to a box large enough to protect what is sent, up to a size that can be transported in a wheelbarrow. Nowadays parcels often bear a
barcode A barcode or bar code is a method of representing data in a visual, machine-readable form. Initially, barcodes represented data by varying the widths, spacings and sizes of parallel lines. These barcodes, now commonly referred to as linear or o ...
so they can be tracked at all the stages up to their reception by the final recipient. A
barcode A barcode or bar code is a method of representing data in a visual, machine-readable form. Initially, barcodes represented data by varying the widths, spacings and sizes of parallel lines. These barcodes, now commonly referred to as linear or o ...
is a unique ID number or code assigned to parcel when send it to the recipient. a
barcode A barcode or bar code is a method of representing data in a visual, machine-readable form. Initially, barcodes represented data by varying the widths, spacings and sizes of parallel lines. These barcodes, now commonly referred to as linear or o ...
itself is reference for the parcel itself to locate a parcel in various points of parcel transit when it shipped as well as providing convenient information for the customer end receiver.


See also

*
Bulletin d'expédition Bulletin or The Bulletin may refer to: Periodicals (newspapers, magazines, journals) * Bulletin (online newspaper), a Swedish online newspaper * ''The Bulletin'' (Australian periodical), an Australian magazine (1880–2008) ** Bulletin Debate, ...
*
Charlotte May Pierstorff Charlotte May Pierstorff (May 12, 1908 – April 25, 1987) was shipped alive through the United States postal system by parcel post on February 19, 1914. After the incident, parcel post regulations were changed to prohibit the shipment of hum ...
*
Package delivery Package delivery or parcel delivery is the delivery of shipping containers, parcels, or high value mail as single shipments. The service is provided by most postal systems, express mail, private courier companies, and less than truckload shi ...
*
Pryce Pryce-Jones Sir Pryce Pryce-Jones (16 October 1834 – 11 January 1920) was a Welsh entrepreneur who formed the first mail order business, revolutionising how products were sold. Creating the first mail order catalogues in 1861 – which consisted of w ...
* Surface mail * U.S. Parcel Post stamps of 1912-13 * Pigeon post * Drone delivery


References

USPS Standard Post


Further reading


''Parcel post in foreign countries''
Washington: Government Printing Office, 1912, containing the text of the ''Convention for exchange of postal parcels of the International Postal Union''. * Stopford, M. (2009): ''Maritime economics, 3rd edition'', Routledge. {{DEFAULTSORT:Parcel Post Postal systems Philatelic terminology